Re: World Soccer X: Duh, duh, duh, duh...The Champions!
In a little game I'm going to play until the official draw comes out, here's today's "Random World Cup Draw of the Day." Since the official rules aren't out yet, I took a few liberties in guesstimating things this time around. Today's draw is postulated on a few points:
1. FIFA puts CONMEBOL and Africa in the same pot. It might be more likely that they do it the other way around (CONCACAF+Africa) in hopes of making a very easy draw for the hosts, but I'll do it both ways in the future to keep discussion up.
2. In this case, FIFA seeds the Dutch but not the Portuguese or French. Borderline impossible to read their minds without knowing the process yet, but this is just for the sake of discussion.
3. All other rules (as far as I know them), such as no two teams from the same confed (or three from UEFA) together, are followed. Here's what I got.
GROUP A: South Africa, Switzerland, Paraguay, South Korea
GROUP B: Netherlands, Portugal, Uruguay, Australia
GROUP C: Germany, Serbia, Cameroon, USA
GROUP D: Brazil, France, Ivory Coast, Mexico
GROUP E: Italy, Denmark, Ghana, Honduras
GROUP F: Argentina, Slovenia, Nigeria, Japan
GROUP G: England, Slovakia, Algeria, North Korea
GROUP H: Spain, Greece, Chile, New Zealand
Group of Death: D is for Duh. If this group actually happened, I'd be rolling on the floor laughing, mostly because Mexico would be looking at a 3-and-out square in the face.
Group of Life: G. This is a shamefully easy ticket to the knockout stages for England.
Difficulty of USA's draw on a scale of 1-10: 7. They can play with Germany a little, but Serbia were excellent in qualifying, and Cameroon's not an easy out. Not to mention the fact that there are all sorts of nasty France '98 flashbacks with this group. Where's a 3-6-1 when you need it?
Difficulty of England's draw on a scale of 1-10: -5. Seriously.
Fun fixture of the first round (for football reasons): Any game in Group D not involving Mexico
Excruciating fixture of the first round: Paraguay-Switzerland. If that wouldn't be a 0-0, I'd eat my hat.
Politically fun fixture of the first round: England-North Korea. Well, North Korea against any capitalist nation would be a hoot, really.
Who cares? fixture of the first round: Ghana-Honduras.
In a little game I'm going to play until the official draw comes out, here's today's "Random World Cup Draw of the Day." Since the official rules aren't out yet, I took a few liberties in guesstimating things this time around. Today's draw is postulated on a few points:
1. FIFA puts CONMEBOL and Africa in the same pot. It might be more likely that they do it the other way around (CONCACAF+Africa) in hopes of making a very easy draw for the hosts, but I'll do it both ways in the future to keep discussion up.
2. In this case, FIFA seeds the Dutch but not the Portuguese or French. Borderline impossible to read their minds without knowing the process yet, but this is just for the sake of discussion.
3. All other rules (as far as I know them), such as no two teams from the same confed (or three from UEFA) together, are followed. Here's what I got.
GROUP A: South Africa, Switzerland, Paraguay, South Korea
GROUP B: Netherlands, Portugal, Uruguay, Australia
GROUP C: Germany, Serbia, Cameroon, USA
GROUP D: Brazil, France, Ivory Coast, Mexico
GROUP E: Italy, Denmark, Ghana, Honduras
GROUP F: Argentina, Slovenia, Nigeria, Japan
GROUP G: England, Slovakia, Algeria, North Korea
GROUP H: Spain, Greece, Chile, New Zealand
Group of Death: D is for Duh. If this group actually happened, I'd be rolling on the floor laughing, mostly because Mexico would be looking at a 3-and-out square in the face.
Group of Life: G. This is a shamefully easy ticket to the knockout stages for England.
Difficulty of USA's draw on a scale of 1-10: 7. They can play with Germany a little, but Serbia were excellent in qualifying, and Cameroon's not an easy out. Not to mention the fact that there are all sorts of nasty France '98 flashbacks with this group. Where's a 3-6-1 when you need it?
Difficulty of England's draw on a scale of 1-10: -5. Seriously.
Fun fixture of the first round (for football reasons): Any game in Group D not involving Mexico
Excruciating fixture of the first round: Paraguay-Switzerland. If that wouldn't be a 0-0, I'd eat my hat.
Politically fun fixture of the first round: England-North Korea. Well, North Korea against any capitalist nation would be a hoot, really.
Who cares? fixture of the first round: Ghana-Honduras.
IMO, those are both dream draws for the US, given a CONCACAF/Africa pot. I'd personally chip in for the bribe necessary to get those draws.
